Elevator… To the Moon! Turbo Champion’s Edition

Genre: Interactive Toybox / First-Person Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

Elevator… To the Moon! is an interactive toybox/puzzle game with a strong story component, and as the title probably indicates, the experience here is quite a silly one.

You have somehow gotten roped into being the test pilot of sorts for the United States president’s pet project, the titular elevator to the moon. However, it’s clear from the start that the whole thing is pretty fishy, and the president probably isn’t qualified to be directly handling a space exploration program… or engineering… or managing staff… or being president… or anything, really.

Much of the charm of this game comes through its characters, including the aforementioned president Roccmeier, who is very clearly an Arnold Schwarzenegger parody, yet manages to be so cleverly-written you can almost forgive that… but I’ll get to that in a sec. For a game that runs on humor and puzzles, it’s good that the game seems to do both pretty well, and when it comes to the humor side of things, it seems like nearly every interaction you have with the environment around you comes with humorous results, either due to what happens as a result, or commentary by the other characters.

As for the puzzles, the game plays like a VR headset game, where your ability to move is limited, but you are surrounded by various things you can interact with, and must find ways to use these items to accomplish various tasks during your misadventure. It works pretty well, as just about everything you need to do is readily at your fingertips, the way you use stuff largely makes sense, and there’s a good variety of stuff surrounding you so it’s not necessarily too easy – and if you ever get stuck, the game’s handy hint system works pretty well at showing you the way while still giving you every opportunity to figure stuff out for yourself.

The game’s visual presentation works well enough. It’s nothing special, but it gets the job done. However, the voice acting here is top notch, taking some really broad, cartoony archetypes and giving them enough life and personality to flesh them out and make them interesting.

However, while I can forgive this game’s lack of graphical pizazz, it’s harder to ignore something that stuck out like a sore thumb here – the entire game seems like it was made for an age over a decade ago. You know, a time when the prospect of someone like Schwarzenegger running the country was whimsical and silly, and the notion of the man at the top actually thinking a thing like an elevator to the moon or a space force was actually a good idea was a laughable fantasy instead of a really depressing, unfortunate reality. This isn’t just my political leanings talking, either – the game has occasional pop culture references that seem dated, which is really odd since the original PC version of the game came out in 2017. It makes for an odd moment when you suddenly find yourself, say, playing out a Who Wants To Be a Millionaire parody in this day in age. Thankfully at least most of the humor here is character-based and situational, though.

Elevator… To the Moon! manages to succeed at providing a good, interesting puzzle experience while putting you in the middle of a funny, entertaining story. There’s nothing new or revolutionary here, and some of the references are dated, but it’s still a fun and enjoyable ride all the same.

tl;dr – Elevator… To The Moon! is a fun little First-Person Puzzle game where you’re fixing problems on a ridiculous expedition to the moon. The puzzles are good albeit nothing revolutionary, and the story and comedy are really well done, although some of the references feel a bit dated. All told, this is an entertaining game worth a play-through.

Grade: B-

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2019 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Funniest Game, Best Graphic Adventure Game

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